


The Uncanny Adventures of a Child and His Dog

by dragoneyes



Series: Pet Therapy Werewolf (aka: The Wuffguru AU) [2]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 19:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21184409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoneyes/pseuds/dragoneyes
Summary: There was a dog waiting in front of the Mouri Detective Agency.





	The Uncanny Adventures of a Child and His Dog

There was a dog waiting in front of the Mouri Detective Agency.

It was Hattori's uncanningly perceptive dog, the one that reminded him of an underfed wolf.

He was quietly waiting next to the door, and his tail raised in greeting as soon as his eyes landed on Shinichi.

Well, that was an unexpected sight.

"Hey, Shiro," he greeted back once he was closer to the animal, earning a merry bark and a damp nose rubbing against his cheek in return. From up close, Shinichi noticed again how tall the pet was, even with his thin limbs and narrow chest. It gave him a bit of a devilish look - all points and no soft lines - and it was a bit of a pity because, in spite of his menacing appearance, Shiro was just as friendly as Hattori himself was.

He didn't look like any breed that the detective had seen before, so he must be a cross of some kind: a wolfdog, for example, would certainly explain the physical similarities to his wilder cousin species.

"What are you doing here?" Shinichi wondered aloud, reaching out to scratch behind one big triangular ear. "Is Hattori around?"

The dog didn't reply - of course he didn't, he was a dog - but he tilted his head to the side in curiosity.

"Your owner," the child tried again, attempting to use a word that would spark some familiarity in the animal, "Hattori Heiji?"

Shiro watched him with those big yellow-orange eyes he had, and he gave a soft, befundled whine.

Well then, that clearly wasn't working.

After a quick look around to make sure that Shiro was indeed alone, Shinichi fished his phone out of his pocket in order to call the one person that should be able to explain to him why he was currently being explored again by a friendly nose.

"Hey, Kudo! What's up!" of course Hattori sounded as energetic as always.

As soon as the teen's voice came through the receiver, Shiro's ears perked up in recognition, his stance now alert, while he gave Shinichi an inquisitive look.

"I don't know, have you lost anything or anyone recently?" the child replied, watching in amusement as the dog's tail began a gentle back and forth.

"Like wha--"

_Bark bark bark!_

Suddenly the dog was excitedly attempting to get at Shinichi's phone, forcing him to take a step back to regain his balance, before his backside could have a very undignified meeting with the ground.

"Shiro?! Is that you, buddy?!"

_Bark bark bark!_

"Buddy! Kudo, put me on speaker! I wanna talk to him!"

Shiro was still attempting to get at Shinichi's phone, and his tail was making its best impression of a furred cyclone. It was all ridiculously adorable, and the child detective could only snicker in amusement as he complied with his friend's demands.

******

They were having a conversation.

They were having a full-on conversation that comprised mostly of the teen detective praising the dog, and the animal happily barking back at him because "yes, indeed, he was certainly a good boy."

Shinichi wasn't even surprised that Heiji was one of _those_ pet owners, and at this point he would feel more taken aback if he were to find out that his friend's current phone background _wasn't_ a picture of the dog.

******

In the end, "Let him do his thing," was all that Hattori said about the fact that his dog was seemingly roaming the street of the wrong city.

******

Shiro was stalking him.

Alright, maybe "stalking" wasn't the right term to use, as the dog was doing nothing to hide the fact he had been following Shinichi around for the past three days.

He vanished every time that too many people were nearby, but he showed himself once when Ran was around. She had looked uncertain at the beginning, probably finding his size a bit unnerving, but after he had rubbed the tip of his muzzle against the back of her hand, she seemed to realize that he was a well behaved and friendly dog.

******

"Is that for me?"

There was a bag of some sugary treats of some kind hanging from the dog's mouth. The animal was holding it delicately, making sure not to rip it by accident while he nudged it in Shinichi's hands.

Shiro had somehow managed to gain enough trust from Ran in the span of just one week, to be allowed to escort Shinichi to school in her stead. He still vanished before the other kids could notice his presence and attempt to approach him, but this was the first time that he showed up at the Mouri Detective Agency with an offering of some kind.

"Uh, thanks? But I don't really like sweets?" Shinichi hummed even as he took the bag from the dog. Shiro's only answer was to nose pointedly at the back of the package.

Oh, they were lemon-flavored.

Alright then.

"Thanks," the detective smiled more sincerely, earning a happy bark.

******

It was only when he was already in class and sitting at his desk, that it occurred to him that it was a bit weird for a dog to know his tastes.

******

This was the second week in a row that Shiro was following him around.

Shinichi had no idea where he went when he was at school, nor where he slept at night, but he always showed himself at least once.

This time the dog was waiting for him in front of Agasa-hakase's house, sitting in wait like a _komainu_ in front of a shrine. He tilted his head in Shinichi's direction as soon as he saw him, but he waited for the child to approach before abandoning his stillness.

The animal was pleased to receive a pat on the head.

He also followed the detective inside.

******

"Is that a _wolf_?"

Haibara was sitting comfortably on the couch, a magazine in her lap, and her blue eyes peering at Shiro in a scrutinizing squint.

"Of course not, wolves are extinct in Japan," Shinichi replied, reaching out for the tv's remote while he took a sit next to her, "...and there wasn't any news of any escaped animals from the zoo recently."

"It doesn't look like a dog," the girl pointed out, still watching Shiro, while the latter took a considering sniff in her direction, before laying on the floor in front of them. He shuffled closer so that their feet were resting on his back, and their legs weren't forced to dangle in the air for an extended period of time.

When Shinichi turned the tv on the news, the dog watched the screen with interest, not letting out even a whine at the sudden sound, and showing that he was more than used to be around house appliances on a regular bases.

That certainly didn't seem like any way a wild wolf would normally act like.

"I think he's a crossbreed of some kind," Shinichi offered, absently rubbing the back of the animal's neck with a sock-clad foot. "That might explain the wolf-like appearance."

"Besides," he added with an unconscious smile when Shiro turned his head to playfully nudge his leg with the tip of his nose, "...he belongs to Hattori."

"Hattori-kun's, hum?" Haibara considered aloud, watching the dog give a playful nip at Shinichi's questing foot.

"He was at Hattori's house two month ago, and Hattori certainly acts like he's Shiro's owner."

"But he never said so himself?"

"He never denied it either," the detective shrugged, eyeing the way the animal's tail began swinging left and right at the mere mention of the Osakan teen. "Shiro kinda forced his own adoption on him: I think at this point Hattori is just refusing to address the issue out of principle."

"He _would_ be a dog person," Haibara considered, going back to reading her magazine, seemingly content to keep using the dog for a footrest. "But that certainly explains why this animal is so well-behaved: Hattori-kun wasn't the one to train him to begin with."

Shinichi wasn't entirely sure that there was a way for him to rebut that one.

******

Somehow Shiro ended up on the couch with them, his body laying across Shinichi's legs without weighing down on them, and his big head resting in Haibara's lap. Her magazine had been discarded at some point in favor of absently scratching the animal's forehead with the tips of her fingers. There was a thin line there, just above his left eye, where he seemed to have gotten hurt at some point and the fur was still in the process of growing back to its proper length.

The dog didn't give any sign of discomfort even as Haibara delicately traced it, watching her instead through half-lidded eyes as he leaned into her touch.

Shiro might look a bit unapproachable at first, Shinichi considered, but he actually had a very affectionate personality instead.

******

"Hello, Hakuba-niichan!"

There was Hakuba Saguru, nestled between two bookcases and looking through what appeared to be French literature. He looked down when Shinichi addressed him, and a pleased smile bent his mouth as he greeted him back.

"Hello, Edogawa Conan-kun," he put the book in his hand back in its proper place to give the child his full attention. "This is quite an unexpected place to find you."

They were at a small bookshop that mostly dealt in foreign literature, the cozy, family-run kind that made you feel at home even when it was the first time you set foot inside of it. There was almost nothing written in Japanese there, and Shinichi supposed it was fair for the teen to be surprised at his presence in such a place, when he looked like a seven-year-old.

"Ran-neechan was talking with a classmate about it..." he explained, "...and I wanted to check if there was anything interesting in English."

"Isn't that an unusual read choice for a grade-schooler?" Hakuba didn't sound condescending when he asked that question, in fact he seemed honestly curious about what answer he would be given.

"I know English!" Shinichi replied, opting for a cheery child-like enthusiasm, "I've been to America a lot of times!"

"Is that so?" Hakuba looked amused for some reason. "Then shall I introduce you to the owner, so that she may better show you around?"

That sounded like a great idea actually: he'd seen the middle-aged woman when he had first entered the store, but she'd looked busy replenishing a few shelves, and he had opted not to distract her from her work at the time.

He opened his mouth with the intention of accepting the offer, but he was interrupted by a familiar voice calling for his attention.

"Hey, Kudo, what's the hold--" Hattori appeared from around the corner of a bookcase, only to abruptly come to a stop when he saw who the child had been talking to.

Whoops, Shinichi had been so distracted by meeting Hakuba again so out of the blue, that he had forgotten about his friend tagging along.

"Hattori-kun!"

The first one to shake himself from the initial surprise was the half-British teen. He sounded unexpectedly delighted at the sight of the Osakan detective, his whole expression lighting up, and his smile growing even wider.

"How fortuitous! There is something I needed to talk you abo--" he made a move as if he wanted to step closer, only to abruptly interrupt his movement halfaway through it, when the other's teen attention finally landed on him.

"What the fuck are _you_ doing here?" Hattori's voice came out a bit sharper than needed, and it made Shinichi turn to stare at him with a confused frown: there was some kind of irritation twisting his friend's expression, but the child had no idea where it was coming from. Granted, the two teens did not start their acquaintance with the right foot, but Shinichi didn't think they had been in such bad terms when they had parted ways after the whole incident with the Detective Koshien.

"I...always come here?" Hakuba offered, now sounding uncertain, his forehead creased in the same befundlement that the child felt at the moment.

"My mother and the owner are old friends..."

"Ah," Hattori pursed his lips in annoyance, as if he had hoped for the blonde teen to leave soon, then he turned towards Shinichi to ask, "Well? Are you done looking around?"

Again the child detective opened his mouth to answer and again he was interrupted before he could give his answer.

This time, of course, was by a scream of horror from one of the other customers.

******

Thinking back to it again, Shinichi should have suspected that someone would end up dead, the moment he bumped into Hakuba: there was no way that there wouldn't be a murder with three teen detectives present.

******

"Hattori-kun, there is some kind of substance under the victim's fingernails."

******

"Hattori-kun, there is a mark here on this bookcase."

******

"Hattori-kun, I think you should see this."

******

"Hattori-ku--"

"For fuck's sake, Hakuba! _I get it_! You're good at finding clues! Can you stop showing off now?!“

Hakuba took a step back, startled by the sudden outburst: he didn't seem to have noticed the other teen detective's growing frustration at being pointed out where to look at. His maroon eyes were wide with alarm and confusion in equal measure, while he stared back at Hattori like some kind of overgrown, chastised puppy.

"But last time you--" he began to quietly protest, only to sharply snap his mouth shut midway through his words, his expression changing into one of frustration.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," he slowly started over, eyes refusing to meet anyone's gaze, "I'll...just stay out of your way then."

And with that he went to where the store's owner was watching the proceedings, and he didn’t say another word.

******

"What's up with you and Hakuba anyways?" Shinichi asked once the murder was dealt with.

A grimace of distaste made its way on Hattori's face, as he gave a half-hearted shrug. "He just annoys me, that's all..."

Which was usually Hattori-speech for "I don't actually have anything against the guy, I'm just bitter about something."

What, specifically, Shinichi had no idea, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know, since he knew his friend enough to be aware of the fact that sometimes the teen's grudges were...a bit unreasonable.

It would have been a pointless endeavor anyways, since Hakuba seemed to have already abandoned the premises while they were both busy relaying what had happened to the officers that had come to take the culprit away.

******

"Hakuba doesn't deserve him, that's all..." was what came out of Hattori's mouth when they finally stepped outside the bookstore.

Again Shinichi had no idea what the other was talking about.

******

"Bye, Conan-kun!"

Shinichi waved at Ayumi, Mitsuhiko, and Genta as they took off.

They'd all gone to the park to play soccer after classes ended, but it was time now for the three of them to head back home. Haibara had declined to join their game, because apparently there was some fashion show she wanted to watch on tv, and so Shinichi was now left to his own devices.

There was still some light, and he had at least a couple of hours of free time before having to go back himself, so he brought his attention to the ball resting on the ground next to him, and he began to bounce it back and forth from one foot to the other. Some of the things he was able to do with it when he was a teen were now more difficult - the ball being so big compared to his body now, that it made some difference - and he wanted to practice a bit now that the children weren't around to pull him into an actual game.

Almost half an hour had passed, before he noticed that he was being watched. It was an adult woman dressed in a pair of comfortable dark pants that contrasted sharply with her brightly colored shirt. She stuck out from the other people still in the park because she looked markedly western in both her facial features and her blonde, shoulder-length wavy hair.

When Shinichi sent her a look, she just smiled and waved at him. She didn't _look_ threatening, but he had no idea _why_ she would be interested in watching a kid play with a ball.

...then again, there _were_ a few very specific brands of criminals who liked to lurk where unattended children might be.

Shinichi watched the way she was now covering her mouth - as if she were hiding a grin of some kind - and he decided that he might as well activate his shoes, just to be on the safe side. Slowly he kneeled down, pretending he was going for his laces, before letting his hand stray for the dial on the side.

His fingers had barely touched the circular surface when suddenly a heavy weight crushed onto his back from behind, sending him flat on the ground. His breath escaped his lungs in one huff, and suddenly he realized that he was pinned down.

Instinctively, panic sending his brain into overdrive, he attempted to kick at his assailant, but he found that he could not move, his lower body kept in place by a heavy and warm weight. He struggled against it, but there was no escape: there was no way to move, there was no way to even take a look at the face of whoever was holding him down.

If only he could turn enough to use his watch, could try to--

There was something damp and warm rubbing against the back of his neck.

_There was something damp and warm rubbing against the back of his neck._

He felt his body freeze at the foreign sensation - which was a terrible, terrible idea because this would only make it easier for his assailant to do whatever they wanted!

But he couldn't move!

He could not move!

He was stuck!

He was pinned down!

_And it was rubbing against his neck!_

Maybe he should really consider screaming for hel--

_Whine._

Shinichi paused, suddenly feeling like an idiot.

Sudden assault from behind? Check.

Warm weight keeping him down? Check.

Something damp and equally warm rubbing against his neck? Check.

A markedly non-human sound? Check.

"Shiro?"

A happy bark answered his careful guess, and finally he was let free to roll over, his back now against the grass. On top of him was standing a familiar and excited quadrupedal shape, watching him with friendly amber eyes.

"Hey there," a grin slowly bent Shinichi's mouth at the sight, feeling his body relax now that he knew he wasn't in danger, and he reached up to scratch the dog's furry neck.

"Have you been stalking me again?" he asked, wiggling his way out from under the animal, and slowly raising to his feet. He was answered by another friendly bark and a questing nose snuffling all over his face.

"I'm sorry about his behavior."

Shinichi almost jumped out of his skin when the sudden query came from behind him. He swirled around to find that the blonde woman he had noticed before was now standing next to him, a gentle smile on her face, and an amused spark in her honey brown eyes.

"Did he scare you?"

"Ah, no," Shinichi managed to say, automatically turning to the more childish voice he used when addressing unfamiliar adults. "He just surprised me, that's all!"

"I see," the woman hummed, her gaze straying to eye Shiro with a speculative gaze: the dog was sitting now at the child's side, his head standing taller than Shinichi's own, and ears straight up in the air in alertness. Now that he thought about it, Shiro seemed to know this woman, because he was giving no sign of alarm at her presence, and she seemed to know him back enough to be able to stop him if need be.

Uh...?

"Well, since you seem to be all on your own, would you like us to accompany you home?" she finally offered, turning her attention back on the child in front of her.

"Ah, thank you, but I'm fine, there is no reason to--" Shinichi tried to refuse, unsure why he was being proposed something like that since they barely knew one another, but he was interrupted by a bark at his side. Shiro was watching him with disapproval, and he leaned closer to give him a nudge to the side with his snout, as if to prompt him to follow the woman's wishes.

Uh...

"I believe, that's his way to tell you that he insists on being your escort," the woman sounded like she was just a step away from bursting into laughter.

******

"Nee, Obaa-chan? How do you know Shiro?"

The woman chuckled at his question. She was walking at his side, matching Shinichi's shorter stride, and it looked like she was used to take into account her companion's pace, because he didn't even have to ask her to.

He still had no idea who she was exactly.

"You must be friends with Hattori-kun, hum?" she unexpectedly replied, her honey-colored eyes peering at him with amusement.

"You know Heiji-niichan?" Shinichi, unable to keep the surprise from showing in his voice.

"Of course," she stated without hesitation. "He comes to visit often."

She was grinning in a way that reminded the detective of a mischievous child, and Shinichi had to take a quick glance in Shiro's direction to make sure that yes, indeed, everything was still fine according to his furry friend.

Her expression looked familiar somehow, but the detective couldn't quite pinpoint where he'd seen it before.

"Hum, Obaa-chan? Who are you?"

"Oh my! Did I forget to introduce myself?" she brought a hand to her mouth in a show of surprise, her eyes wide in such exaggerated embarrassment that she must be doing it on purpose. Her eyes were still sparkling with barely-repressed hilarity.

"My name is Hakuba Emily, nice to meet you."

Well, then.

"You're Hakuba Saguru's mother," Shinichi stared up at her, still trying to process exactly how many chances there were for them to meet by pure coincidence like that. His reaction only helped in making her amused smile come back with a vengeance.

So _that_ was where Hakuba got his smirk from.

"That's right, and you must be Edogawa Conan-kun, correct?" she inquired leaning in as if to take a better look at him.

"Yeah, that's me..." Shinichi frowned at the sudden interest, not sure where it was coming from. "How do you know that?"

"You match Saguru's description of you," she smoothly replied, which made sense from a purely theoretical point of view, but the detective still couldn't help but wonder what exactly in his appearance gave off his identity: surely there were other kids with glasses around?

His uncertainty must have shown on his face, because he felt something nudge his side and he turned his gaze to find that Shiro had given him a friendly bump as if to ease his mind.

Then Hakuba's mother started snickering.

It was a muffled giggling sound and it surprised him for a moment, because he wasn't sure he'd ever heard someone her age do that before.

The look on her face was mischievous again, and suddenly Shinichi felt like he was missing the joke.

"Hum, Obaa-chan?" he called her again, attempting not to sound miffed at being the cause to her mirth. "Why are you with Shiro?"

_And now she outright snorted!_

Shinichi watched her with wide eyes, while she tried to calm down her fit of laughter.

She took a few deep breaths and only when she had gained some appearance of control over herself back, she gave her reply.

"Because Ace is part of our family."

******

How had Hattori managed to avoid addressing the fact that Ace was not his dog for more than three months, Shinichi wasn't entirely sure. He refused to believe that it was lack of attention on his part, and therefore, he decided, it must be his friend the one still in denial instead.

"Does he even know about this?" he couldn't help but mutter aloud.

"Oh, he sure does!" Hakuba-san chuckled, evidently understanding who he was talking about, while she patted the object of the debate on his triangular head. The dog let out a contented sound and he let her do whatever she pleased, leaning in her touch when she scratched him behind a large ear.

"As I mentioned, Hattori-kun comes to visit often: he's quite attached to Ace, after all."

That was an understatement, if Shinichi ever heard one. He wondered if she knew that Hattori seemed to be wishful thinking about being Ace's sole owner.

"Although he seems to have some reservations against Saguru instead," she added in a weird sequitur, letting out a hum of consideration.

_Understatement._

"What about you then, Conan-kun?" in spite of his expression, Hakuba-san was peering at him with a smile, as if used to see that reaction when talking about her son.

"Do you like Ace?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Shinichi could see the dog peering at him with curiosity. At some point he'd shuffled even closer to the woman, and now his whole body was pressed against her leg: seeing him like that, there was no doubt that he was her pet.

"Yeah!" the detective answered with a bright smile. "He looks a bit scary, but he's very affectionate!"

"He is," Hakuba-san concurred with a kinder smile on her face. She let her fingers brush the top of the animal's head, fingertips lightly sliding from the center of Ace's forehead all the way to the back of his neck.

"He likes to play as often as possible with the people he gets along with," she added, going back to her amused expression from before. That would certainly explain why the dog kept following Shinichi around: perhaps Ace was just feeling lonely since Hattori wasn't there to spoil him with an abundance of petting and games.

"What about Saguru?" Hakuba-san's question made the child blink up at her in confusion, again feeling a bit wrongfooted by the shift in topic.

"Hakuba-niichan is alright," he replied with a half-hearted shrug, "I don't dislike him?"

A look of thoughtfulness took over the woman's features at his answer, and her hand gave a firmer rub at the top of Ace's head when the latter let out a soft whine.

"But you don't like him either," she concluded, and Shinichi could only flush, because her evaluation of the situation wasn't wrong: while he didn't share Hattori's irritation towards the half-British detective, he wasn't exactly planning to know him better either. It was nothing that Hakuba did specifically that made him act like that, it was just that he wasn't used to be the one to initiate friendships in that way.

Usually _he_ was the one to be approached, it was never the other way around.

"Oh! I didn't mean it as an accusation," Hakuba-san hurried to clarified when she saw the look on his face, "I was merely curious since Saguru talks a lot about you, that's all."

"He talks about me?" Shinichi frowned, unsure about what to do with that new piece of knowledge.

"All the time," the older woman replied without hesitation, giving no sign that she found anything wrong with her son talking about a seven-year-old child as often as she claimed he did.

"But we barely know each other..."

They'd met a grand total of three times in the past, why would Hakuba be interested in him? He was pretty sure that the blonde detective didn't suspect anything about his identity: it wasn't like with Hattori, where his friend had been actively invested into finding "Kudo" to challenge him - in fact, the half-British boy hadn't shown any interest in "Kudo Shinichi" at all.

"You seem to have left quite a favorable impression on him," Hakuba-san was smiling again, and she had gone back to leaving gentle soothing strokes down Ace's neck.

Shinichi had no idea how he was supposed to feel about that revelation.

******

"When were you gonna tell me that Ace isn't your dog?"

"Shiro is mine in my heart!"

At least that explained why Hattori acted so bitterly towards Hakuba at the bookstore.

Good to know.

******

_That_ was a howl.

Shinichi would have dismissed it as a wild dog of some kind, if not for the way Hattori's face lit up at the sound.

"Shiro! That you, buddy?" he called out in the foliage, watching his surroundings with the kind of excitement you would expect on a child at an amusement park.

The teen had somehow ended up tagging along when the Detective Boys elected it was time for a new camping trip. _Why_, specifically, Shinichi wasn't sure - he suspected the boy of learning a few stalking habits from his friendly dog companion - but the end result was that the two of them were busy setting up camp while the others gathered wood, when the sound started.

It took another howl, and another, more excited call from Hattori before a bush right next to them began to shake, and a familiar gangly figure slowly stepped out of it.

The dog was wearing some kind of harness that looked a bit like a vest with a thick leather back, that Shinichi had never seen on a pet before, and he was staring back at them with his ears and tail perked in alertness. There was something about his stance that made him look a bit more wild, a little less domestic, or maybe it was just their natural surroundings that accentuated his wolf-like features. He watched them with his amber eyes, nose twitching to catch their scent, and for a moment Shinichi wondered if this wasn't Ace after all, but just a dog that happened to resemble him.

"Shiro!" Hattori's grin was wide and pleased, and he didn’t seem to share his doubts, until he took a step closer and the dog's ears flattened back in a sign of nervousness.

"Shiro?"

"Hattori, I'm not sure that's him..." Shinichi warned, and his friend paused, squinting at the animal while he better studied his appearance.

"No, that's definitely Shiro," he stated with confidence.

"He's the thing that I..." he continued, waving a hand in the direction of the dog, only to abruptly interrupt himself with a frown and shake his head. "Never mind that."

Without any more hesitation, Hattori returned to closing the distance between himself and Ace. He kept his pace slow, stopping again when he saw that the animal was still showing signs of uneasiness, in order to crouch down to offer a hand to sniff.

"Hey, why are you so nervous today, hum? Did something happen?"

Ace, of course, was unable to answer the question, but the teen's friendly disposition and respect for his personal space seemed to convince him that he could take a handful of uncertain steps closer. He took a few whiffs of the air, his yellow-orange eyes sending a glance at the boy in front of him, as if to make sure it was alright. Then he gave a few gentle licks to the offered fingers.

"There you go," Hattori's grin was back at that sight, and he scooted closer to greet the dog properly. He reached for the furred neck and began to scratch it vigorously, earning a sound of approval, and Shinichi watched with amusement as Ace's demeanor slowly returned to his more usual perky self at the attention: his ears turned upright, his shoulders relaxed, and he straightened himself into a more elegant and proud stance.

...and then a familiar ball of feathers and claws descended from the sky and attempted to murder Hattori's face.

******

_Well, that certainly explains the weird leather harness_, Shinichi considered, eyeing the way Watson was perched on Ace's back, as if that were his rightful domain.

It was a fortune that the first aid kit was well-stocked, because Hattori needed more than a few bandaids to patch up what was left behind the hawk's passage.

Once the others came back to the camp, Ayumi seemed suitably alarmed at his newly ruffled state, that is until all actual-children involved noticed the big dog and his guarding bird, and they decided it was in their rights to attempt befriending the both of them.

Ace didn't seem to mind.

Watson, on the other hand, appeared to decide that it was simply too much socialization for his raptorial tendencies, and he flew up in the foliage of a nearby tree.

"That thing has Hakuba's same freaking attitude," Shinichi heard Hattori mutter when the bird was out of sight again. "It's a miracle that at least Shiro got his personality from the Superintendent General, instead..."

Debating the pros and cons of pointing out to his friend that being jealous at Hakuba for owning that specific dog made no sense whatsoever, Shinichi let his gaze trail back to the cluster of children fussing over the object of the debate.

Ace was watching them back, his ears turned in their direction as if he were listening to their discussion, and Shinichi couldn't help a small grin from bending his lips at the sight: maybe he should join the others and give some attention to the animal as well.

******

It ended up with Ace chasing the children around.

Hattori, of course, showed zero hesitancy in joining them.

Shinichi might or might not have followed suit.

******

At some point in the afternoon, Ace vanished in the underbrush, followed by a silent shadow up above in the branches.

He came back with a dead hare firmly held in his mouth by its broken neck.

The children were mildly traumatized and they needed to be explained how the circle of life worked in the wild.

Shinichi now knew why Ace was left so often to fend for himself.

He also found out that Watson only ate the food that the dog offered to him himself.

They looked like an unusually furry mother bird feeding her most prized chick.

******

Shinichi had no idea how he ended up in this situation to begin with.

While it wasn't particularly uncommon for him to be taken hostage by a murderer after their deed was revealed, he usually did not end up with both a knife at his throat, _and_ stars dancing in front of his eyes every time he was given as much as a light jostled. He was pretty sure his left shoulder was dislocated, which meant that, no matter how much he wished his arm to raise in order to shoot the asshole currently holding him in the face with one of his darts, it simply refused to obey.

He really hated his small body sometimes.

In front of them, Ran looked scared out of her mind, because how was she supposed to kick the murderer into the nearest concrete wall and help "Conan-kun" out, if he was being held at knife-point like this?

Shinichi attempted a last effort to move his left arm, to no avail: the only thing he managed to do was for a renewed jolt of pain to run up his shoulder, making his eyes tear up and his breath catch in his throat.

Black spots danced in his field of vision, and he had to close his eyes against the sudden dizziness.

The guy holding him hostage was barking out some kind of demand - his voice loud and sharp, and so unwelcome right now - but Shinichi could not make his words out properly, not with his mind clouded, and his thoughts being broken up every time he was roughly moved around.

He really, _really_ hated his small body sometimes.

It was so tiny and stupid, and even the shortest movement from the man holding him, would send it swing about to rudely remind the child of his dislocated shoulder.

Grinding his teeth, Shinichi tried to muster up all the energy that was left in him to find a solution to his current predicament.

What could he do?

What could he do?

What could he--?

There was a growl.

It was a low scratchy noise, that began like a soft warning, and then grew into a menacing and deep rumble that made the hairs at the back of Shinichi's neck raise and sent a primal part of his brain into high alert.

He could not move to check the direction it was coming from, but the man holding him must have heard it as well, because, in a sharp move that sent yet another bout of sharp pain up his arm, he turned around to find its source. The knife was lowered, the edge no longer pressed against the child's throat, but the latter had no time to think about what to do next: as soon as the blade was no longer near his skin, a loud bark rang out, like the roar of thunder in the middle of a raging storm, and then Shinichi found that he was no longer being held by a firm grip, but that he was instead sent flying into the air.

He hit the ground with such force that his body kept rolling for a few long seconds before he finally came to a stop.

His mind slowed down by the pain, he drowsily decided that he must have blacked out for a handful of instants, because when his gaze focused again, the murderer was flat on the ground with seventy kilograms of dog pinning him down and growling right in his face with all the deadly fury of an enraged _youkai_: Ace's lips were curled back - revealing his long and sharp fangs in an unmistakable threat - his ears flattened to the sides, and his tawny fur was raised and puffed out from the top of his neck all the way down to the base of his straightened out tail.

If Shinichi had any more doubts about his wolven ancestry, he would have none now.

Slowly and carefully, he pulled himself up until he was sitting on the ground, useless left arm cradled against his chest to avoid it from moving again and cursing him with more blinding pain.

There was a look of fright on the murderer's face that made him feel a bit vindicated for his current state. The dog didn't seem intentioned to actually harm the man - in spite of the menacing stance - if the latter complied and behaved himself, so Shinichi took a deep breath to dispel the leftover pain still lingering behind, and he pulled his legs closer to his chest.

******

"This body sucks."

It was a quiet, bitter mutter, and Shinichi knew he shouldn't say such things aloud - they might catch Ran's attention - but his words were the truth nonetheless.

Ace was keeping guard on him now, ears perked in alertness, and the stance of a guardian ready to defend their charge. The dog peered back in the child's direction with gentle amber eyes at his words, studying his expression carefully, before slowly closing the distance between the two of them. He settled right behind Shinichi, fuzzy chest pressing against his tiny back, and long front legs bracketing his body to keep him surrounded by a comfortingly warm and furry nest. With a soft, encouraging whine, Ace left a few affectionate nuzzles right at the top of his head, taking advantage of the height difference between them.

"I hate this body," again the words left Shinichi before he could quite think better of it. He could see Ran sending him worried glances as she talked to the officers who had come to arrest the murderer - someone having evidently called them during the altercation - and his chest twisted in guilt at the sight.

He didn't mean to do this to her again. He had just been distracted for an instant, long enough for the murderer to send him flat on the ground, forcing him to brace himself at a bad angle and making his shoulder ball pop out of its proper location, before he was grabbed again by the back of his shirt and held against the edge of a blade, like the tiniest most useless hostage in the history of ever.

He just wanted to reveal a dangerous criminal.

That was always his intentions.

He never meant to make Ran sad like that, and yet it kept happening over and over and over again.

He kept making her worry both as Shinichi _and_ as Conan, and he was so tired of this whole situation, that he could just--

A paw carefully sneaked its way into his lap, pulling him back until he was almost completely surrounded by tawny fur and a warm canine presence.

Ace was keeping his tiny back safe, quite literally keeping him protected from any danger that might be lurking nearby. If Shinichi's body were true to his actual age, the dog wouldn't be able to do anything of the sort - he wouldn't be able to shield him and keep him away from sight, when he wasn't ready to deal with Ran's worry, or the looks of pity he sometimes got from police officers when they thought he couldn't see them.

It made him feel a bit better about his small size somehow.

**EPILOGUE**

Saguru always felt amused skimming through the family album. He wondered what people not privy to his situation would think about it, when it showed pictures of his human and his wolf self in equal measure: one page might have a toddler cumsly making his way to his mother, and the next one a puppy attempting to brave his first flight of stairs.

The last person to have inherited that "peculiarity" in bodily structure was his great-grandmother, and so, when his mother found herself with a cream-colored puppy instead of her one-year-old son, she - according to Saguru's father, who always seemed very eager to relay that episode in great details - proceded to "freak the fuck out", until she was informed by her own mother about her family's tendency to pop a werewolf child once in a while.

His mother always claimed that after his first transformation, they had to both baby _and_ pet proof the whole house.

From what his parents told him, juggling the issues that came with having a child that was a whole other species half the time, was a bit of a feat at the time, but they managed somehow. There was some trouble until he was old enough to understand that he couldn't explain to people that he was part-wolf - as they would either think he wanted attention or believe he just was a very creative child - but he did remember having a few friends his age that he used to play with for a few years, before they split apart and went their own way.

The only real downside to the whole thing was being forced to choose homeschooling over more regular education: there was simply no way to explain to teachers why one of their kids kept disappearing on a regular basis, without risking raising some serious suspicions on their part.

Luckily, by the time Saguru was old enough for high-school, he also gained enough fame as a detective that he now had a convenient excuse for his absence, and so, when him and his mother moved back to Ekoda from their family house in England, he had asked his parents if he could enroll into regular school this time around.

It took some pushing - and a few well placed puppy eyes - to convince them, but in the end they agreed to it, and, after a bit of searching, they found that Ekoda High allowed considerable leeway about attendance, as long as its students kept their marks above a certain threshold.

Being that close to people his age that much more often from what he had been used to was...an experience.

There were some pros - most people from his class were nice, if one excluded Koizumi-san overly saccharinely-scented magically-enhanced charm, and Kuroba-kun's mocking tendencies - but there were also some cons: after having spent most of his life around a few selected adults, being surrounded by so many teenagers became easily overwhelming.

Politeness and social conventions helped a lot in that regard, but he wasn't entirely sure he was "making friends" with anyone, as much as just avoiding being overtly antagonized by them.

The idea of getting closer to Aoko-san or Keiko-san was nice, but when he thought about how to explain to them that he would be unable to communicate with them in any way for four weeks every two months, he floundered, unable to find a satisfying solution to the problem: he couldn't tell them he turned into a wolf if they weren't close friends, but he also couldn't be close friends with them if he vanished so often from their lives.

He could theoretically use his detective work as an excuse and maintain some kind of message-based relationship during his absence, but he would need to have someone else to become privy of their conversations in order to type an answer in his place, and that seemed like a terrible breach of privacy to subject them to without their knowledge.

He was stuck and he had no way to come out of this conundrum.

It was a bit disheartening: at the beginning of the school year he had hoped it would be easier to overcome the issues inherent to his genetics, but there clearly wasn't a completely satisfying solution to this problem.

He supposed he had not much choice other than to continue the same way he had always done before.

"What are you doing?" the familiar female voice brought him back from his musings, and he raised his gaze from the book in his lap to be met with a smile full of affection.

"Ooooohh! Family album!" his mother's eyes lit with interested when she took in what was going on. "Scoot over, _puppy_, I wanna take a look at it too."

They ended up with Saguru laying across the couch, with his head resting on her thighs and the book propped up against his bent knees. She liked that position because she could thread her fingers through his hair the same way she did with the fur of his wolven self, and he liked the position because it somehow felt very natural and relaxing to lay belly up when one of his parents was involved.

She was chattering away about this or that thing that Saguru used to do when he was a puppy. They were all stories that he knew by heart at this point, but the sound of her cheery voice made him feel better after the gloomy thoughts he had found himself stuck in.

"Hey, how about that time I won my first battle against the mighty Hoover Demon from Hooverland?"

She smiled, her grin growing even larger, and she launched herself into an exciting narration of a story that Saguru had already heard before.


End file.
